The story centres around the volatile ex-lovers' ill-fated appearance in a 1983 revival of Noel Coward's stage play Private Lives.

Him & Her director Richard Laxton will helm Burton and Taylor, which was announced by BBC controller of drama Ben Stephenson this evening (February 11).

Speaking about the BBC's latest drama commissions, Stephenson said: "It is about applying the Danny Boyle vision to our work - a bold, adventurous, authorial approach that exports because of its Britishness not despite it."